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Human psychology, which is somewhat predictable... easier to predict than heads or tails for a coin, at least.

hmmm.. you're a trader?

Should we buy bitcoin now that it has dropped over 30% in the last four days?

yes - if.... we are on it for a long term investment and the predictions about it will really push through
it looks like the wind is staring to blow in a different direction - eth?

My crypto strategy is typically buy and hold half of the initial position(s) and trade the other half. With bitcoin it's been more of a buy and hold 70% and trade the other 30% and I'm starting to treat ETH the same way because I think you might be right about it "taking over".

My plan to weather this battle between cryptos is to spread out my bets across the top coins, with the majority of it going to the current leading coins like bitcoin, ether, ripple, litecoin, etc.

Obviously, I have a pretty decent bet on Steem, too, and I still think that it has the best chance of paying me off big, both short-term and long-term.

Hum... okay but who guarantees that people always follow those patterns?

There is no guarantee, it's statistics and probability.

Exactly!

Thanks for taking what I was trying to say and putting it succinctly :)

There are T/A tools that measure noting but investor sentiment, such as OBV, DMI, and RSI readings. The best way to "know" what people/sheeple/skeeerdy cats will do next is to look at exactly what they are thinking at any given time. I don't use volume statistics or moving averages at all in my chart analysis because they are worthless indicators imo. Price is the most important, and "knowing" which price highs/lows need to be breached is the "bible" of being a successful trader. If you asked the ave technical analyst where the closest major support area is on the stock they were trading, 90% of them would have no idea. :-) But yes, there are guarantees. For bitcoin, the technicals on bitcoin tracker GBTC already told you that yesterday's 297 low will get taken out. And "actual" bitcoin will follow the path of GBTC (not the other way around), therefore, bitcoin is "guaranteed" to breach yesterday's $2134 low. Let's watch and see if it happens over the weekend.

http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/advchart/frames/frames.asp?show=&insttype=Stock&symb=gbtc&x=48&y=20&time=3&startdate=1%2F4%2F1999&enddate=6%2F12%2F2017&freq=7&compidx=aaaaa%3A0&comptemptext=&comp=none&ma=0&maval=9&uf=0&lf=1024&lf2=2&lf3=8&type=2&style=320&size=4&timeFrameToggle=false&compareToToggle=false&indicatorsToggle=false&chartStyleToggle=false&state=11

You can pull this live bitcoin ticker chart back to the 3 day window if it goes to the one hour default. That will show you the low that is definitely going to be taken out in short order.

http://bitcointicker.co

No guarantees.

It's like closely observing a relative and how they emotionally react to certain situations. No matter how much time you put into observing them and taking note of how they react, you can't ever be 100% sure how they'll react in a similar situation in the future, but you'll probably be right more often than wrong.

In the same way, collections of traders and investors usually react in the same way that they have in the past to similar market conditions. Not always, but more than 50% of the time, which is good enough to make profits from.